More Focus Being Put on Developing at the Mobile Level
October 29, 2015
By Steve Anderson
Contributing Writer
The impact of the mobile workforce is being felt throughout the working world, and now, app developers are starting to respond accordingly too. The response is to focus development on the mobile side of the equation, bringing more tools and services directly to the mobile user, instead of to the desktop first.
Examples of this development abound; Mitel (News - Alert) Networks recently announced it was taking a mobile-first approach, focusing on the tablet and smartphone rather than the desktop. To that end, Mitel offered up an app for the hospitality industry that lets a user's smartphone serve as a door key, as well as a platform to access voicemail and use several location-specific features. There's a real challenge involved in such a sea change, because developing for tablets and smartphones is said to be quite different from developing for desktops, and much more challenging in turn.
But this challenge is being rewarded. Gartner, when choosing companies for its Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (News - Alert) (UC) system, recently started giving extra weight in consideration of companies that offer mobility-first options. Even with this added weight, just four of the 11 firms in the Magic Quadrant for UC had mobile UC capabilities: Cisco, Huawei (News - Alert), IBM and NEC. Bern Elliot, a Gartner analyst, pointed out that mobile devices in UC is on the rise, as are user expectations, so demands for mobile devices in UC are becoming more important to answer.
Several startups are also taking advantage of the mobile-first concept; firms like Switch Communications, which recently started offering a business phone system specifically for Google (News - Alert) Apps. Switzerland's Wire offers stereo group calling, and Talko offers a variety of tools for both one-on-one and group calling.
It's not surprising to see the startups leap toward mobile-first development before the more established firms. Established firms often take some time to change directions, overcoming the inertia of the leaps that let such firms become established in the first place. Startup firms can put all that energy into a straight leap forward. But the key here is not how rapidly firms move toward mobile-first development, rather that any movement is being done to begin with. It's clear customers want those mobile options; as the mobile workforce grows in capability and size, the tools needed to do the job must be included. Those tools have to work on the devices most readily used, and that's making the desktop—even the laptop—more of a secondary development than before.
The mobile workforce is changing a lot of how we carry out our daily work, and mobile-first development is just one change among many. Many more are likely to follow, and keeping abreast of these changes may mean big payoff for companies and workers alike.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi